Date: August 23, 2024 (Friday)
Time: 2:30–3:30 pm
Venue: Room 4.36, 4/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU
Speaker: Prof. Khairudin Aljunied (PhD SOAS, London)
PhD SOAS, London
Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore
Senior Fellow (formerly Professor and Malaysia Chair of Islam in Southeast Asia) at Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Bunn Intercultural Center (ICC), Georgetown University
Abstract:
The last two decades witnessed a rapid growth of healing practices informed by Islamic teachings and traditions. Dubbed as ruqyah syar’iyyah (or simply “ruqyah”), such psychospiritual treatments have morphed from being a last-resort alternative to mainstream medicine into becoming a preferred and complementary healing modality across the Muslim world. Thousands of ruqyah clinics and centers have been established. The number of practitioners has increased exponentially since the post-COVID-19 era. This seminar explores how ruqyah has been rationalized and promoted by prominent influencers in Southeast Asia, with a special focus on Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. I argue that these influencers widened public reception of the ruqyah through the use of a variety of rationalizing strategies, drawn from scientific and supra-scientific sources. They utilized various communicative channels (online and offline) to project a mutual balance between modernity and piety. They positioned themselves as experts working within the intersections of psychology, culture, and society. The net effect of this – to refine Arjun Appadurai’s theory of cultural flows – is the coming into being of what I call “soul-scapes” that connect the circulations of psychospiritual healing methods in public and private, physical and virtual spaces across Southeast Asia and beyond.
All are welcome. For enquiries, please contact us at smlc@hku.hk
Comments